Out of the Ashes
by Wewritefanfic
Summary: A Draco and Harry story set after the war their 8th year at Hogwarts. Starts with the train journey and realisation of feelings. Will have slash in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This one is mainly Slither's work with an edit or two from Scribble.

The characters involved aren't ours. We're just messing with J.K's. It's going to be slash later but it'll probably be a slow builder because for this one there needs to be more reasoning than in a oneshot.

Opinions in reviews would be AWESOME.

Enjoy!

P.S. Next chapter might be a bit delayed. Our A levels are starting soon and will be an obvious drain on time.

**Out of the Ashes**

… means Harry thoughts

{…} means Draco thoughts

[…] means Ron thoughts

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Harry was sitting, like (almost) any other year in a compartment with Ron and Hermione.

The latter was, as usual, getting far too excited about the prospect of the advanced magic they _should_ be learning this year.

"If they make us go back to stuff like turning frisbees into flip-flops or rubbish like after all we went through last year…"

"Chill out Hermione" Ron interrupted her mid rant, "we haven't even got to school yet and you're wondering if the work will be hard enough? Bloody hell woman, aren't there more important things to worry about?"

Ron and Hermione settled into a long discussion about the new house system and how it would all be worked out seeing as there would be double the amount of first years.

Harry happily zoned out of the conversation at this point with little trouble, if being their friend for seven years had taught him one thing it as how to detach yourself from your surroundings extremely effectively.

Emerald eyes slid around the compartment, a definite detached air about them.

He hadn't really enjoyed the summer, despite defeating the most powerful dark wizard ever all he wanted was a normal life. Preferably without the death and destruction that until now had followed him around like a lost puppy. It felt as if every time he closed his eyes he just saw the faces of those who had died, and even after all this time seeing Sirius fall through the veil hurt like a fresh wound.

Harry dragged himself reluctantly out of his brooding and his eyes slid rapidly back into focus as he realised that during his aimless staring he had now watched a very familiar blonde head walk past their compartment window for a fourth time.

Before he could do anything his mind took him back to 'that night', where Malfoy was perched on that fragile tower of charred desks, staring helplessly up out of the Fiendfyre with one arm stretched out, fear on his face.

Harry knew what was coming next: he tried to escape the memory before he could remember the feel of the blonde's lithe body pressed up against his own back. Bollocks. Too late.

I wish that idiot would just go and sit down somewhere. Surely he's got better things to do. It's not as if us 8th years are even prefects.  
Harry thought as, yet again, Malfoy's head made its way past the window.  
Right. That's it. I've had enough.

Just as he slid himself out into the corridor realisation hit him. Shit, none of his 'friends' must have come back. Shit. Now I have to say something or I'm going to look like a right divvot.

"Hey, Draco" Harry called softly down the corridor, "you need someone to sit with?"  
Whoa, why the bloody hell did I just call him _Draco_? Subconscious I really need to learn how to control you!

Blonde hair landed in silver eyes as Draco Malfoy whirled round, a half hearted sneer already in grazing his lips.  
The sneer dropped a notch from hostility to confusion as he saw the sincerity in Harry's eyes; he appeared not to want to accept the offer but wasn't really sure how to reply.

{Damn him and his stupid noble Gryffindorness. You _knew_ he would come out eventually to see 'poor little ferret face with no friends' but you just kept on walking. Just so that he would notice you again. Well done. How to look like the worlds biggest pillock in one easy lesson.}  
Draco sneered to himself.  
A little voice in the back of his head betrayed his true feelings.  
{But I don't have any friends, I never did. What if I actually have the chance to have a friend, and a _good_ one, he can't be that bad, he did rescue me, and the hat did nearly put him in Slytherin.}

"So are you coming in or just decorating the corridor?"

Draco felt a slight heat at the base of his neck.  
{Was that meant to be a compliment? Hang on, did that mean he actually wanted it to be a compliment? Oh shit. Now I'm blushing at a Gryffindor. Just kill me now.}

Malfoy fought to compose his expression as he slipped around the compartment door.

"Now be nice Ron, his mum saved my life."

Being hissed in Ron's ear woke him from his staring out of the window watching England flash past, one garden fence after another.  
A few minutes later he caught Hermione's anxiously glittering eyes and tracked them to where, or indeed who, they were flickering towards.

It was only then that he realised that the halting background conversation actually belonged to two familiar male voices, albeit one almost unrecognisable due to the lack of sneer that usually distorted it.

[But Neville hasn't come back, bloody hell! What the bloody, sodding, chuffing hell does that ferret think he is doing sitting in OUR compartment talking to MY friend… shit. Shit. Oh bloody hell. How do I react to this, bitter is easy, polite will kill me!]

The penny finally dropped as to what Harry had said before. Ron promptly proceeded to have a small mental breakdown.

He sat gaping like a fish a Hermione, who just nodded.

[How did she know what I was thinking? It's not exactly like she had any time to learn legimency over the summer. I should know.]  
Ron smirked to himself.

"So Ferret, how many of your delightful house can we expect to join you this year?" Ron interrupted snidely, deliberately ignoring the warning and, was this possible, slightly disapproving glance that Hermione shot at him.

"Still as immature as ever then Weasel?"  
{But at least I detected a capitalisation of 'ferret' which is a little more than I was expecting. Oh yeah, because that's the perfect way to prove to Potter just how mature you are.}

"You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but how many Slytherins actually are coming back to Hogwarts?" Harry asked softly, tactfully ignoring the _wonderful _display of maturity that had just transpired.

"Let me guess? Poor little Drakie here is all alone at big nasty Hogwarts coz mumsi wumsi wanted him to?" Ron sighed.

The retaliatory "Fuck you" was slightly lost in Draco's haste to lunge at Ron.

{How do these frigging Gryffindors know exactly know what goes on in everyone's lives. No one should know about that except me. There is no way he has the brain to be able to guess that well in his head!}

A strong arm snaking round his waist halted all thoughts, of decking Ron, as fast as they had appeared.

He noticed that Hermione had both hands full, dragging an almost snarling Ron out of the compartment and the only thing he could think of was that delicious burning heat round his waist was Harry Potter.  
{Shut up, stop pretending you haven't liked him for years} his mind muttered to him.

Draco caught himself just before he whimpered at the loss of contact as Harry withdrew his arm hastily from his waist, as Harry moved to sit down opposite him.

"Are you OK, Ron's and absolute twat sometimes but he should come round?" Harry grinned apologetically; emerald meeting silver.

{Why do I feel as if he can see straight into my soul?}

Oh my god, his eyes are gorgeous, I could look at them all day. Why is he so bloody hot? FUCK! Did I just think about "Draco Malfoy" and "hot" together?

Harry broke the gaze and looked quickly to the ground a flush creeping up to his cheeks.

Calm, calm, calm.

"So. . . anyway, are you the only one coming back then?"

{Don't give it away!} Draco reprimanded himself.

"No offence Potter, but do you really think I would be sat with you if I wasn't?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth Draco winced to himself, wishing he could have just kept his mouth shut.

{Great, 20 minutes with them and I'm already starting to act like a Gryffindor.}

Well, I'll give him one thing, at least he's honest.

"So you just walked past five times by accident then did you?" Harry enquired innocently.

{Thank God for that, he didn't notice the first 17 times then…}

"I… I…"

"I think Ronald here has calmed down enough now for him to act like a civilised human being." Hermione saved Draco from a seriously awkward bit of stammering and blushing by frogmarching a no longer quite so livid Ron back into the compartment.

{And I thought that I'd been making an effort to be nice to him as well, or ignore him at least}.

"Look, Malfoy. . . I'msorryisthatOKforyouHermione?" Ron garbled as fast as he could, spitting the words out as if they were poisonous.

Draco inclined his head to acknowledge the apology, not quite trusting himself to speak.

"Anything from the trolley dears?"

Harry quickly jumped to his feet and bought four of everything, then seeing Draco's longing look to the chocolate frogs, bought an extra two. He chucked one each at Ron and Hermione, keeping two for himself and giving two to Draco.

"They're my favourite too" he explained, ducking his head to hide his embarrassment.

{Is it really that obvious that I love chocolate? Need to work on that. God. This is so different from being with Slytherins!}

He could tell the warm feeling bubbling in his gut had nothing to do with the hot pumpkin pasty he was devouring either.

Harry quickly looked away before Draco could catch him staring. A fraction too late.

{Interesting, very interesting. Maybe I'm imagining this, but was he just staring at me? I hope, really hope that this has something to do with how I seem to have been adopted into the 'golden trio' before I knew what was happening}.

The rest of the train journey passed in conversations that were getting slightly less awkward between Draco, Harry and Hermione as Ron sat sulking out of the window adding the occasional snide comment that rarely failed to cause an awkward silence.

Draco indulged in some serious silent speculation as to what the bloody hell was actually happening to him.

There was no way that Harry had even imagined he would be making this journey in the same compartment as Draco Malfoy other than under an invisibility cloak.

Draco was a different matter; he had imagined the journey with Harry plenty of times this last summer. It was never quite the same, and never with Granger and the Weasel, instead it had been just the two of them. Alone.

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	2. Chapter 2

A/N I know this is quite short and it's just plot filler, but I haven't forgotten about it. I will keep writing. It's just really hard to find the time with exams and then I have loads of training, which takes up most of my life when I'm not doing revision. So the updates will probably be a bit random. - Slither  
Sort of beta'd by Scribble, she just likes to smooth Slither's ideas over!

Chapter 2

The brakes squealed as the train slid into Hogsmeade station. As Harry stepped off the train a pair of arms threw themselves around his neck. Oh crap, here we go. A head full of ginger hair tucked itself under his chin, burrowing into his chest.

"I can't believe that prefects and the head girl and boy aren't allowed to sit with their friends on the train, I mean, how unfair do they want to be?"

Harry just grunted noncommittally. This situation, although anticipated, was becoming steadily more and more awkward.  
Why now, why did she always have to pick the worst moments for her ridiculously over the top displays of affection to 'her' Harry.

With a firm insistent grip on one of his hands Ginny was already dragging Harry to a Thestral drawn carriage to accompany Ron and Hermione; scanning the hoards of students for the grey eyes he had lost.

Draco, on the other hand, was swept by the torrent of younger pupils, off the train and away from the emerald eyes he too was loath to lose contact with. He busied himself with blending in, no doubt soon the hatred would spurn. He was recognisable, Malfoys always had been, and with the conclusion of the recent war his family was suffering severe disrespect.

Harry caught the possessor of the silver orbs retreating behind a large group of 6th years, obviously trying to be as invisible as humanly possible; without the aid of a certain type of cloak, this was less effective and left Harry able to regain that specific blonds' attention.

Shaking his head and raising his eyebrows almost imperceptibly at the ginger girl latched onto his arm Harry mouthed, with an apologetic look, across to where Draco was standing, "Sorry!" and then with a grin,

"She's kidnapping me, help!"

Harry theorised it could have gone one of two ways; when he threw out his joke he aimed it slyly towards Malfoy, goading a reaction though their eye contact, but he also disguised as a witticism for Ron and Hermione to translate too. They knew Harry felt out of sorts with Ginny's attention but also his past of being the "Saviour Of The Wizarding World" was enough to entertain when he claimed to be the one needing to be saved.

Luckily the blonde just smiled idly back at him and made his own way to where the carriages were waiting.

Multiple thoughts flew through Draco's mind when he was confronted by a smirking, but almost wounded looking Harry who had been somewhat attacked by the ginger menace, Weasel-bee's little sister. When he saw the word "sorry" grace Harry's lips he was nonplussed then hearing "She's kidnapping me, help!" laughingly announced, all the while never breaking eye-contact, Draco realised his world was changing once again.

The companionable journey to school had been quite enough to take in but this bond between himself and Potter (he tried to spit the name in the fashion of his younger self and found conflict within his mind) was, to all intents and purposes, weirding him out.

He settled on a smile in response knowing that, despite a training of remaining austere and distant in odd social situations, this budding friendship was necessary, Draco craved it, and this was a chance he could not waste.  
Ignoring the boy-wonder would be one thing but jumping to his aid when the call for help had clearly been intended as a joke would be unreasonable. He could not deny however that the idea of saving Harry was playing and tugging at his consciousness; he owed his life to the brunette and the cry for help brought back his memory of the Room of Requirement, last May, once again.

Harry scowled at a few third years, who looked as if they _might_ have been considering getting in a carriage with them, sending them running down to the next carriage wondering if they might get away without a hex once they realised who they were looking at. He considered his change of temperament was caused by the sudden stares and anticipation for the forthcoming days, and not, as the thought niggled the back of his mind, that he was disappointed to lose the company of one Draco Malfoy and instead be lumbered with the fiery chattering red-headed Ginny.

"This is going to take bloody ages isn't it, twice as many people to sort! I mean why aren't they keeping the houses that last year's seventh years were given? and why can't they sort them after we eat, or at least while we are eating? I'm bloody starving!"

"Now Ron, you know perfectly well why, the first years can't just hover around a random table while we eat. You know that the banquet is an excellent opportunity for the first years to get to know other members of their houses..."

"Okay, okay, I get the point! I have to wait to eat, I'm not at home anymore, sensible restraint etc, etc."

Ron hastily stopped Hermione by cutting through her 'house bonding' speech.

"I think I've had enough of the whole house unity thing today. Dealing with Malfoy for the whole train journey is enough for the **year**, let alone a bloody day," Ron added bitterly.

Hearing Ron's honest reaction to the companionable time they had spent on the journey struck Harry.

Unsure as to the true source of his disquiet (he needed time to consider the sudden spark of friendship with his old enemy away from the claustrophobic opening feast) he didn't respond to Ron's statement.  
His lack of reaction, Harry theorised, would be put down by Ron to tiredness and hunger but the dazed look that crept unwittingly over Harry's features left Hermione looking at him with her soul searching chocolate eyes.

Unspoken questions battled to the forefront of Hermione's consciousness and just as she was about to confront Harry, about his willingness to forgive and forget, the doors to the Great Hall opened once again and Professor Sprout led in the startled, and fairly bedraggled, first years.

The Sorting Ceremony was about to begin!

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